Editorial: Occult Hepatitis C Infection Should Be More Noticed With New Treatment Strategies

1. hepatitis c virus infection, a global concern: hepatitis c virus (hcv), as the only member of genus hepacivirus within the family of flaviviridae, is the major worldwide health concern. diagnosis of hcv infection is based on finding antibodies against the virus (hcv-antibodies) or hcv-rna in the serum. it is known that some of the recently infected patients can recover from the acute infection. a meta-analysis of almost 700 patients with acute hcv-infection showed that the range of spontaneous viral clearance is about 26% (95% confidence interval 22% - 29%). however, the remaining patients can develop chronic hepatitis c (chc) infection that affects about 3% of world population, related to more than 170 million people all over the world. chronic hepatitis c can lead to liver fibrosis and cirrhosis and finally hepatocellular carcinoma (hcc) in about 20% of cases.